Preparing To Put My Urban Fantasy Wide.

I’ve mentioned previously that I’m removing my Ink Born and Hidden Alchemy books from Kindle Unlimited on December 30th. My Infernal Hunt series has been wide for a while now. I thought you guys would appreciate seeing my process and preparations for this transition.

My biggest thing has been my newsletter. Newsletter is king, particularly for wide authors. I’ve been working hard to build up my list for a few months now, but I’m making the transition from increasing my numbers, to increasing my engagement. I have three big list-builders I’m part of so I’m not abandoning growing my list entirely, I’m just shifting my focus.

Up until now I’ve used Instafreebie to grow my list to 5,500 strong. It was 6,500 strong but I had a big clear out and that resulted in 1000 unsubscribes. I’d rather not pay for subscribers who have no interest in buying my books, so I’m happy about this.

My open rate is pretty solid right now, so I’m happy with that. I’d like to improve my click rate and really get these subscribers on board with my books.

I’m all for sharing data to help you, so here’s what my open rates currently look like:

As you can see, my open rate is quite reasonable. I’m happy with it. Now I need to increase that click rate. Most of those click rates are on other authors’ books as I share Urban Fantasy bargains in every email I send to my subscribers. I’ve been experimenting with how I present the books to see how to increase clicks, but when it’s other peoples’ books I can only do so much. It comes down to their cover and presentation.

Back to my books… 😁

I’ve started to remind my subscribers that my books will be leaving Kindle Unlimited on December 30th, so if they planned on reading them via KU it would be wise to do so soon. I’m also offering those who depend on KU a place on my review team if they can’t afford to buy my books. As someone who absolutely depends in KU to be able to read, I don’t want to throw those people out in the cold.

I’m going to try and draw more attention and interest to my books by including more lore and snippets from my books and worlds. Short pieces of 100 words or so that pique their curiosity and encourage them to click the link and find out more.

That will also be applied to my blog. I’ve been awful and I’ve left my Urban Fantasy blog Khaos Foxe to sit quietly in the corner. That’s where I post my free fiction, things I love about Urban Fantasy, it’s my readery blog. I’m going to put some effort into getting snippets, scenes, and the like up over there. Again the aim is to provide short pieces to entice readers and pique their curiosity.

I’m also changing my brand.

I admit that I can be incredibly stubborn and pig-headed, and I’ve absolutely been that way this year. I have been pushing the LGBT+ side of my Urban Fantasy very hard. That has made things more difficult, because as much as it might irk me, the LGBT+ stuff is still niche. I’m all for putting off people who refuse to read that, but I’m also potentially losing good Urban Fantasy readers who might love my books. So I’m graciously accepting that I was wrong, and I’m reframing myself and my books as good, fun, Urban Fantasy.

They’re still LGBT+. They’ll remain in those subcategories on Amazon, I’m just not shoving that part in everyone’s faces.

This means I’ve tweaked my Facebook and Twitter headers.

The old:

The new:

The words say ‘Tattoo magicians, treasure-hunting alchemists, oh my!’

I’m shifting how I present myself from heavy-handed LGBT+ to colourful and fun Urban Fantasy. I changed my pinned tweet over too.

The original tweet was for Seers Stone and highlighted the fact it’s a bisexual treasure-hunting alchemist and how it’s my #OwnVoices book. I accidentally deleted the tweet instead of just unpinning it.

This is the new tweet:

Aside from the rebranding as a good, fun, Urban Fantasy author, I’m also looking into CPC ads (cost per click). I’ve found that paid promo sites such as Ereader News Today just aren’t giving good returns any more, not for me anyway. They’re also very Amazon-centric, which isn’t very useful to me when I’m wide. So I won’t be using those very much next year. I plan on using CPC ads to fill that gap and keep a steadier smoother income rolling in, rather than ups and downs due to sales and hard promo using paid lists.

I’ve played with Bookbub CPC ads but I find them to be very expensive so those experiments are currently on hold. I’ve done a little with AMS (Amazon ads) but I need to do a lot more through December. People rave about Facebook ads, but again they’re expensive, so I’m doing a lot of reading before I try those.

I’ve been researching how to get the most from them. I listen to the SFF Marketing podcast with Lindsay Buroker (free on youtube), and that has a few excellent episodes with CPC ads. I also have Help! My Facebook Ads Suck! to read to help me make the most of FB ads without losing too much money.

In Summary:

Make the most of my newsletter by working on engagement and using snippets and related to convert subscribers into readers.

Rebrand away from the very niche LGBT+ Urban Fantasy, to good fun Urban Fantasy.

Read everything I can on CPC ads in preparation for using them when wide.

I hope this helps someone out there. If you’d like to thank or support me, you can find my Urban Fantasy on Amazon here: